India-Vietnam Strategic Partnership:
The Convergence of Interests
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
"Vietnam treats India with strategic
importance" is what President Tran Duch Luang expressed to India’s
Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh during the latters visit to Vietnam in
mid-November 2000 1 in connection with the 10th
Indo-Vietnam Joint Commission meeting. Available reports on statements
by Indian leaders do not transparently reflect similar sentiments. India
still shies away from coming out unequivocally on expressing its
strategic preferences for countries which are vital or whose strategic
partnerships are desirable for furthering India’s national security
interests. Along with Myanmar, in South East Asia, India needs to build
up a relationship of strategic partnership with Vietnam.
India and Vietnam enjoy a convergence of
strategic interests which could provide the basis for building and
reinforcing strategic cooperation between the two countries. India in
the past, stood by Vietnam in opposing US military intervention at the
cost of embittering Indo-US relations.2 India stood up in the
UN against USA and China on the Cambodia issue and its good relations
with the pro-Vietnamese Hang Samarin government generated antagonisms in
the US Congress and US establishment .3 With such a backdrop
there should be no impediments for India to build up a strategic
partnership with Vietnam in all fields- political, diplomatic, military
and economic.
India has long under nourished its bilateral
relationships with countries which demanded strategic cooperation due to
our non-aligned fixations which predicated that India should never
mention or define strategic relationships, defence cooperation or
military to military contacts with any country.
However, the turn of the millennium presents a
complex strategic environment in Asia-Pacific and impinging on India’s
security and its national security interests. In India’s search for
strategic bilateral cooperation with important regional countries, Vietnam should be the logical
choice. India and Vietnam share a wide area of convergence of interests
on which a solid strategic partnership can be built up.
Strategic Calculus of India and Vietnam - The
China factor
The China factor weighs heavily and figures
prominently in the respective strategic calculus of both India and
Vietnam. India’s Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes was accurate
when in 1998 he described China as a "major threat" to India.
Prime Minister Vajpayee had also in 1998 mentioned the Chinese threat as
an impulse for India’s nuclear weaponisation .4 Recently a
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry official had remarked "we don’t trust
China";5 in other words, Vietnam is suspicious of China
and fearful of China’s intentions.
Both India and Vietnam have very good reasons
for China’s figuring in their respective threat perception as this
record indicates:
* Both India and Vietnam share long land
borders with China. Vietnam also shares sea borders.
* China has disputed its existing borders
with both India and Vietnam.
* China launched punitive military attacks on
both India (1962) and Vietnam(1979). India fared badly because Nehru
never suspected that China would attack India. Vietnam’s record was
remarkable.
* China again attacked Vietnamese garrisons
in the Spratly Islands group and forcibly occupied six of them.
However, once again the Vietnamese Navy met Chinese aggression
squarely.
* China’s recent expressions professing
friendship with both India and Vietnam respectively do not get matched
up with genuine efforts to settle border issues.
* China’s perceived strategic concerns
regarding India and Vietnam forced it to create strategic pressure
points to destabilise these two countries. In the case of India, China
created the Pakistani threat (nuclear and missile threat) and in the
case of Vietnam, it posed proxy military challenges in Kampuchea,
besides direct military force on both land and sea borders.
India and Vietnam therefore have a natural
strategic congruence as to how to restrain China from aggressive actions
in future, while keeping it engaged diplomatically.
India’s strategic and national security
interests demand that Vietnam emerges as a strong state. Relatively,
India is better placed to contribute towards this aim in all fields -
defence cooperation, political cooperation, economic and technical
assistance and technology transfers.
India-Vietnam: Defence Cooperation and
Assistance
Defence cooperation between India and Vietnam
has taken place over the years in a limited manner with exchange of some
military delegations and visits of naval ships. Indian military
delegations visited Vietnam after the Sino-Vietnam War of 1979 to study
how Vietnamese border troops defeated attacks by China’s regular army
formations. As part of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s ‘Look
East’ policy, an agreement on Defence Cooperation was concluded in
1994, but not followed up vigorously.
The imperatives of defence cooperation with
Vietnam seem to have been realised belatedly leading to the visit to
Vietnam by India’s Defence Minister, George Fernandes in March 2000
and signing of a fresh protocol on defence cooperation which
incorporates some of the following major points:
* Institutionalised framework for regular
discussions between the Indian and Vietnamese Defence Ministers.
* Such discussions to incorporate sharing of
strategic threat perceptions and intelligence.
* Naval exercises between Indian Navy and
Vietnam Navy and also those of coast guards of both countries.
* Pilot training of Vietnam Air Force by the
Indian Air Force
These are welcome steps towards achievement of
what should be India’s strategic aim to assist in building Vietnam’s
armed forces to be militarily strong and self reliant. To this end India
could extend defence cooperation to Vietnam in the following fields:
* Vietnam’s Air Force and Navy have Russian
origin hardware which is operationally limited due to lack of spares
and advanced repairs and maintenance. India is well placed to assist.
* India has a sizeable defence production
infrastructure. India should provide such indigenously produced
equipment at ‘friendship prices’ or even as aid.
* India should assist in development of
indigenous defence production infrastructure in Vietnam.
* India should upgrade Vietnam’s Air Force
and Navy military hardware by rendering all technical assistance.
* Military training facilities in India both
combat and technical training should be opened in a big way for
training of Vietnamese Armed Forces personnel.
* India should also consider providing
missile assembly technology of non-nuclear missiles to Vietnam.
Hackles should not be raised on the last point.
If China could with impunity arm Pakistan with nuclear weapons and
IRBMs, China should logically have no moral right to raise a hue and cry
on this subject. At some stage India will have to learn and develop
strategic pressure points against China, to counter what China has done
all along so far on India’s periphery.
India and Vietnam - Political and Diplomatic
Cooperation
In terms of political and diplomatic
cooperation between India and Vietnam, the convergence of interests,
once again tend to get focused on China. To pre-empt China apologists
from disputing the above, attention needs to be drawn to the following
worthwhile analysis of China:
"Clearly it is both foolish and
dangerous to depreciate China or to doubt its long term potential. Yet
that very potential could well be threatening for other nations
including US Pacific allies like Japan, Korea and Indonesia, not to
mention countries like India and Vietnam, even should China not so
intend. The Middle Kingdom’s expansive territorial claims and
pronounced self-absorption virtually guarantee that foreign anxieties
will persist." 6
The same author further amplifies the reasons
for apprehensions about China, thus:
"A major element in foreign apprehension
about China is the pervasive uncertainty about its long term
geostrategic intentions. Some of this is rooted in the
unpredictability of Chinese politics, which have been extraordinarily
volatile across the past half century and may well continue to be so.
But such uncertainty is greatly intensified by the chronic lack of
transparency in Chinese defence planning, weapons acquisitions and
even defense budgeting..." 7
Major effort will be required on the part of
both India and Vietnam to pursue politically and diplomatically the
following initiatives:
* India’s permanent membership of the UN
Security Council. Vietnam is on record supporting India’s
candidature.
* Vietnam’s role in ASEAN and its forums
should be strengthened in all ways possible where India can assist.
* India with its expanding economy and its
linkages with the Asia-Pacific region made to emerge as an influential
member of APEC. Vietnam’s support would be helpful.
* India and Vietnam should jointly work
towards making the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum) an effective mechanism
in the Asia Pacific for confidence building measures (CBMs) preventive
diplomacy (PD) and conflict resolution. Besides keeping China engaged
in multi-lateral forums, one could optimistically hope that China
would submit itself and respect ARF formulations. So far it has
opposed ARF efforts on the South China sea disputes.
On the last mentioned initiative both India and
Vietnam can expect wide support from a number of Asia-Pacific nations
harbouring similar apprehensions about China.
India and Vietnam- Cooperation in the economic
spheres
Similar to the wide convergence of interests
existing in the defence sphere the economic sphere too holds promising
prospects for an India-Vietnam partnership. Vietnam after more than
half-a-century of war-ravaged economy has embarked on a major economic
re-construction programme. However, in terms of absorption of
technologies for its industrial development, it does not require hitech
inputs readily available from countries like Japan. It needs
intermediate levels of technology. India is well placed to fill this
slot and also assist in the development of industrial and economic
infrastructure. Vietnam is not some backward nation that requires
development from scratch, as some selected economic indicators below
would indicate: 8
| Current Account
balance |
$ 0.7 bn |
| GDP Growth |
4% |
| Per Capita GDP |
$ 1,775 |
| Per Capita GNP |
$ 375 |
| Reserves |
$ 2.1 bn |
| Exports last 12
months |
$ 10 bn |
| Population |
82 mn |
| Population Growth |
2.3% |
| Literacy |
91.9% |
India must encourage and induce its private
sector to invest in the following fields in Vietnam:
* Automobiles
* Two Wheelers
* Telecommunications
* Information Technology
* Agro-tech Industries and fertiliser
production
* Pharmaceuticals
* Electrical consumer appliances
* Railway construction and supply of
engines/coaches
* Civil aviation
Vietnam is strongly placed to help India in the
energy sector both in terms of oil supplies and further joint
prospecting for oil and gas. India has adequate experience in oil and
gas prospecting, especially in offshore deposits. In fact India could go
in for special concessions in this field as it has reached with Iraq.
The recently launched Mekong Ganga Cooperation
( Nov 10, 2000 at Vientiane, capital of Laos) comprising India, Myanmar,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam aims to focus on cooperation in
tourism, culture, education and communication. The scope could be
expanded to trade and industry and economic cooperation.
Vietnam’s importance in South East Asia has
suddenly increased strategically as well as economically. Vietnam seems
well poised to emerge as the new economic hub of Asia Pacific luring
Japanese and other investors. India should exploit its traditional
relations with Vietnam to enlarge its economic ties. A militarily strong
Vietnam, necessarily has to be an economically strong nation. India is
well placed to assist Vietnam in both fields. Both nations could work
out mutually beneficial incentives to expand trade and commerce and
economic cooperation.
Conclusion
India and Vietnam are both geostrategically
important countries, vital to all major nations with a stake in the
freedom of high seas. Both countries share disputed borders with China
and both have been subjected to military aggression by China. A highly
proud and nationalistic country with rugged determination and plucky
courage, Vietnam enjoys the unique distinction in the second half of the
twentieth century of having inflicted military defeats on three major
powers i.e. France, USA and China.
Current indicators in the Asia Pacific security
environment point towards China’s emergence as a major strategic
destabilising entity, bent on challenging United States predominance in
the region. It also claims South and South East Asia as its natural and
historical area of influence. China in its pursuance of its power
aspirations stands guilty of strategically destabilising India’s and
Vietnam’s neighbourhood i.e. Pakistan and Cambodia earlier. The
changing international security environment also presents an ironic
picture where Russia which earlier stood by India and Vietnam in terms
of strategic needs, today is engaged in building up the military might
and force projection capabilities of China- a threat perception common
to both India and Vietnam.
In such a strategic environment, while making
all efforts towards keeping China peacefully engaged in the
Asia-Pacific, India and Vietnam should work towards building a bilateral
strategic partnership based on the convergence of interests analysed
above. Such a strategic partnership is in India’s national security
interests and India should not fight shy of proclaiming it as such.
Vietnam has already declared that it views its relations with India with
"Strategic importance" . It is time India reciprocates the
sentiment and no better occasion merits this than the forthcoming visit
of Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee to Vietnam in January 2001.
2.1. 2001
Notes:
1. S.Prasamrajan . ‘Ahoy
Hanoi: With India and Vietnam reviving old bonds, the chances of a
strategic tie-up become stronger’. India Today: November 20, 2000,
New Delhi P 50.
2. J.N.Dixit, ‘Across
Borders: Fifty years of India’s Foreign Policy’ , New Delhi, Picus
Books,1998. P 91.
3. Ibid. P 174.
4. Ibid. P 408.
5. See Note 1.
6. Kent E. Calder, ‘Asia’s
Deadly Triangle: How Arms, Energy and Growth Threatens to Destabilise
Asia Pacific’. London, Nicholas Brealy Publishing,1996, P 216.
7. Ibid.
8. Far Eastern Economic
Review, Dec 22, 2000, P 56.
